Introduction

St. John Ambulance Association (SJAA) of Uttar Dinajpur chapter was established in 1976 as an independent identity with the vision of “Sustainable, holistic, and inclusive development for the vulnerable, economically and socially marginalized people, especially women and children”. So the SJAA with its inbuilt resilience and unfaltering commitment towards the upliftment of downtrodden people, has intensified the spread of the development initiative through the districts of north Bengal. During the journey of almost 50 years, organization regularly reviewed and rectified the goals and objectives according to the community's needs and emerging new developmental issues like COVID-19. Presently the organization has 100 local qualified and experienced staff involved in various project implementations, giving it great experience and in-depth knowledge of local areas.

Our Objective

Organizational strategy:

1Advocacy
To promote people-centric advocacy for empowering marginalized people to speak about issues like health, education and other social realities influencing SHGs, Youth Groups and CBOs to bring change in policies and practices.
2Networking / Partnership
To establish linkage at all levels to create a platform for the marginalized to share their problems and issues with decision-making authority for needful development. It will promote networking with local communities, government, donors, NGOs and potential individuals and institutes.
3Community participation
To walk along with the community, organization will ensure effective project implementation based on people’s need, understanding and experience. The initiative community will monitor and assess the impact.
4Research and Documentation
To have in-depth information about the issues and ensure appropriate data-driven project planning and implementation research will be conducted. Documentation will help the organization to share the learning with communities and partners.
5Women’s empowerment
Empower women and make sure to involve them in all local development processes to reduce the gender gap at the community level.

Coverage

team
300+

304 SHG with nearly 3,672 members

women
890+

896 adolescent groups with 18,762 adolescent girls members

playtime
4900k

Protection support provided to children (2014 to 24) 4,948 adolescents

hiv
390+

Person living with HIV/AIDS 391

person
1050+

Sex workers 1,080 women

construction-worker
9150+

Migrant workers 9,179

Training component:
o ASHA workers (till 9th Batch) 2,290 women
o Job training (of 8 dist. Of WB) 8,800 AWW
o AWH orientation training 5,000
o Job-oriented skill development of 78 Adolescents

Our Goal

Intervention plan

In response to the scope of work and our experience the intervention plan is -  

• Empowering adolescents
• Development of adolescent and child-friendly community
• Capacity building of grassroots-level service providers
• Behavioral Change Communication to counter public heath issues
• Prevention of HIV/AIDS programme
• Emergency service for any natural calamities
• Ambience service to the community
• Vocational training
• Shelter home for boys and girls